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Originally Posted by bob.
personally i did not think it was THAT bad 
i did start to lose interest in the Daenerys story arc...mainly due to so many unimportant characters being introduced....but by the end of it i enjoyed the book overall |
The Daenery's story arc has become too dominant by book 5 and as you say, too many unimportant characters are involved. The confrontation between Roose and Stannis just crawled along throughout book 5 and now we still don't really know what has happened. Also Westeros by book 5 had stopped being the focal point of the series as well.
But my overall gripe on the series now and strangely enough, are the ever growing fantasy aspects that are gradually creeping into the books. The series as a whole is classified as a 'fantasy series' and fans of that genre were who the series was aimed at. But in reality what actually made the series great, was that it was basically centred around British and French Medieval themes and settings, and Martin had done a huge amount of homework on his history, the political sagas of that time, religion, the marriages between houses and paganism etc and then placed the whole thing in a world that he created. He also did a huge amount of meticulous preparation which historically is spot on and without fault, so all in all I see him as a great historical drama writer, because let's face he knows what a drama is. But on the other hand I don't see him as a great fantasy writer though, which imo is a different ball game altogether.